That which Lies Within
by Stormfoedt
Summary: She wasn't from the INside, had never seen what was within those walls that could be seen from everywhere. And the people that ventured outside, the ones in green capes, they were not to be trusted. They were not to be approached. They were IGNORANT. A one-shot with an OC. Very angsty.


*****Because I felt like it. I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, nor its characters or its storyline. It was another attempt to expand my universe*****

They are everywhere. They stomp by my house every night, and I can see them on a daily basis. The monsters. The kind that should belong in a nightmare. But they don't. They are real. So real that...

My childhood was not playing outside in the yard. It was not wandering about in the open while looking for kindle. My childhood was stealth. My childhood was learning to stay quiet no matter what. My childhood was receiving a knife on my fourth birthday and seeing nothing strange in the gesture. At age four, as I received that very first weapon of mine, my childhood was also pronounced over.

For in a world with monsters that makes you want to hide under the bed rather than fearing what IS under the bed, there is no place for a childhood lasting any longer.

I have heard the outsiders, or rather, the INsiders refer to them before. Titans. The INsiders? The ones that live inside the walls. Walls so high that they can be seen from everywhere. And I have been told that the people coming from there, with their green capes and horses and fancy weapons... they are not to be trusted. They are not to be approached. They are ignorants that grew up with all that which I could not. A childhood. The PROMISE of food rather than the HOPE for it.

So I have watched them always, and only approached those that have been left behind. The dead ones. The dead ones that remained dressed and armed and that at times even carried food. Usually Titans, the monsters, eat them, but that would be no hindrance. I might not come from the place where I am handed my weapons and can expect them, but I am armed. And alone, now.

On my fourth birthday I got my first knife, and I took my first step towards adulthood. Of course I wasn't an adult right away, but the shielding stopped. I joined hunts. Learned to kill swiftly and silent. Titans are stupid. As long as they cannot see or hear you they will leave you alone.

On my seventh birthday I did my initiation kill. There was no specific age for the initiation, but it meant that I could be regarded as one of the protectors. One of the HUNTERS rather than the HUNTED.

On my ninth birthday, my mother was killed by a Titan. My uncle died too. All people in the generation before me were uncles or aunts, regardless of our blood. I was the only child. There were seven of us in the beginning. Now only five. After that my father took to drinking. A lot.

On my tenth my father killed my remaining uncles and aunts, and tried to kill me before he killed himself. Mark TRIED. Safe to say, he failed in that act. But then I was alone. I had killed five of THEM in my life. But I used to have help. Support. Family. A place to return to. Not anymore, however. Now I was alone. And the only other humans I knew of, humans I had not seen in a long time, would live behind that wall. Behind the bars of that CAGE.

And though I knew they could not be trusted. Though I knew that they were ignorant and not to be approached, I yearned for at least a look at them. I yearned for a face, any face, belonging to another human being. Wasn't like I had seen them before without being noticed. Wasn't like I didn't know the risk. I still ventured towards the wall. I had resisted the urge for years. I had been alone for so long. I needed to know that even if they did not know of me, and never should for that matter, I still needed to know that they were still alive. That I was not the single remaining human in this world.

Titans are drawn to those walls. They are also drawn towards noisy crowds of human beings. I was quiet though. Quiet and stealthy, armed with weapons belonging to the dead left behind by the people in green capes.

What met me was a surprise. For the gate to the wall, the one I had been told my entire life would ALWAYS remain closed... That gate was gone. There was a hole where it supposedly had been, and the place was flooded. Flooded with the monsters. The titans. And no humans.

As such, at the age of seventeen, seven years after my last encounter with another being, I saw my first human town. And it was so HUGE. Were there this many people in the whole wide world? There must've lived hundreds, if not thousands, here. And they were all gone. Nothing remained but some suspicious brown stains that were all but erased by the weather. That, and the occasional gulp from Titans that had been over-eating. And there was another hole in the wall, one leading into some area beyond the wall.

And I decided, seventeen years old and alone in this world, that I wanted to see what would await me on the other side of the other side of the wall. Of course I started off with a raid of the town. Canned food in such large quantities waited in basements, and quilts softer than what I had ever felt. Safe to say, I hoarded. I picked out houses I would remember and stocked them with food and clothing and other supplements. I even found an armory.

But I also packed a large backpack for myself. Mostly weapons and gutting knives and matches and some food. I also put some blankets and food in the mix. I ate some food before I left since I had a feeling the scarce amount I had brought with me would last for long since other things were of greater importance. While I found some clothing I thought were really beautiful that too was left behind because it constricted my movement. I left that clothing in my little basement hideouts before I skipped town, and went into the world passed the wall.

And what an adventure that would become.

*****I am not intending to continue this, but I feel it was a relatively successful attempt to rip myself from the universe of Earthland. And ON we go to new adventures.. elsewhere! Pardon the angst, by the way. There seems to be a lot of that lately*****


End file.
